Well, on election day Chris Matthews decided to grill Howard Dean about what the Democrats are going to do when they take over Congress, and we have an answer now. First up, they’re going to push for troop withdrawal in Iraq soon.

The Iraqi government must be told that U.S. presence is “not open-ended,” said Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat expected to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in the new Congress that convenes in January.

“We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,” Levin said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Naturally, Bush and the boys are fighting it. I’m more than a little curious to see if this will ever come to pass. I’m not too optimistic, truthfully. And then there’s this:

The Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker, a former secretary of state with close ties to the Bush family, will not have its final report when it meets with Bush.

Instead the panel was expected to gather the views of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, at Monday’s meeting.

I have to admit, I don’t understand this at all. You would think that a study group concentrating on Iraq would meet up with Bush after doing a whole lot of, y’know, STUDYING. They’d gather all of the info and come up with a comprehensive report, then pow wow with the administration and come to some sort of conclusion on that.

Amazing.

I’ve read a lot of articles on ol’ Dubya over the past few years, but I have to admit this one from the London Times may be the best one of all. It sheds a lot of light on the Rumsfeld departure, among other things.

If you want to know why Bush Jr held onto Rumsfeld longer than any sane person should have, one clue lies in the paternal relationship. Surrendering Rumsfeld means that Poppy was right. Not just right about Rumsfeld’s skills and nasty streak. Right about the biggest things: war and peace, country and honour. Rummy was in some ways the personification of the son’s refusal to be his father. Rummy was the prickly, querulous, impolitic businessman, everything Poppy was not.

By picking one of his father’s old nemeses to head the Pentagon in 2000, W was also telling the old man to stay out of his affairs. And Poppy did. As Woodward also recounts, Bush Sr told his friend Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia: “I had my turn. It is his turn now. I just have to stay off the stage . . . I will not make any comment vis-à-vis this president, not only out of principle but to let him be himself.”

Read it for yourself, it’s long but wholly worth it.

I owe it to you guys since I’ve been out the past two days. Here goes.

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a police recruiting center in Baghdad early Sunday, killing at least 23 people and wounding about 50, police said.

President Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to just 31 percent, according to the new NEWSWEEK Poll. Bill Clinton’s lowest rating during his presidency was 36 percent; Bush’s father’s was 29 percent, and Ronald Reagan’s was 35 percent.

The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution Saturday that sought to condemn an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip and demand Israeli troops pull out of the territory.

Democratic leaders this week vowed to make the alternative minimum tax a centerpiece of next year’s budget debate, saying the levy threatens to unfairly increase tax bills for millions of middle-class families by the end of the decade.

Back to the grind tomorrow.